


don't let's start (i've got a weak heart)

by grahatias



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/F, I mean /slow/, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, When i say slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24673936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grahatias/pseuds/grahatias
Summary: Struggling to adapt to her new life, Naminé slowly finds herself caught in a cycle she can't break out of. But the future expecting her cares not.
Relationships: Naminé/Olette (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	don't let's start (i've got a weak heart)

**Author's Note:**

> oh boy... many, many thanks to @silpexx for bearing with me from beginning to end with this chapter... and all my other friends who cheered me on even if they didn't know I was doing this at all! this is my first time ever writing and publishing a fic, so bear with me as well, this is probably going to be a tough learning process... though I hope you will find even something little to enjoy out of this!
> 
> a small header warning: I do not know if this fic will be finished. I don't even know when it's going to be continued, I have a general plan for it but actually sitting down and writing and figuring out how to get there... welp...

It feels like the sun is setting eternally overhead, even as lights go up and slowly, the calming, starless night approaches. Naminé wonders, for a second, when was the last time it rained over those eternally cloudy skies. 

✰

It’s been two weeks since school started, and two weeks since Kairi went to sleep in her search for Sora. The two seem almost too close to be coincidental, and they slowly became the signs Naminé’s life finally went downhill. 

Well, again. 

When has her life gone uphill anyway? Right, right. When the Seven Lights purged the world of Xehanort's plans (but not his influence) and everything sounded like it was going to be fine. For a little while. Until Sora disappeared with no signs of ever coming back and everyone was suddenly scrambling for clues in a poor excuse for a trail of breadcrumbs. 

Naminé sighs and opens the door to the little apartment in Twilight Town. Their little apartment in Twilight Town. 

Isa is complaining about something or other, she can’t tell as she enters the door to the kitchen mid conversation, and everything stops. Xion, Roxas, Isa and Lea all stare at her for a fraction of a second before continuing with their lives. Roxas raises his hand in greeting, Isa nods, Lea asks her how school was, Xion offers to get her bag and jacket. It’s very nice. 

So she immediately warns them she’ll be retiring to her room, and leaves to the tight corridor and the door to the room she shares with Xion and Roxas, and makes sure to lock the door. As soon as she feels she’s finally alone again, she falls to the ground against the door. And begins to shake as she tries her best to hold herself.

It’s been another day.

✰

When they told her she could attend school with the other kids her age, she felt a swell of something akin to pride in her chest. She was trusted. To be able to live with normal kids, in a normal life, doing normal things, like homework and clubs and conversations and vacations and 

And everything she didn’t give Roxas the true chance to experience. 

Of course, he had started going to school a little before her, in tandem with Xion’s first ever School Experience. He was struggling to catch up with the others kids in Twilight Town, too big a gap between his very real world experiences and his memories of “school”, but there was something there, a flash in his smile, the way he came back everyday with a spring in his step and a new story to tell, something that made Naminé’s heart skip a beat in expectation.

She was going to finally get to know what other people were like, what a life really meant. 

Her new body was somewhat awkward, somehow creaky at the edges, like it wasn’t exactly treated the best before it was given to her (Ienzo made sure to reassure her it was properly healed and treated to any others kinds of damage before her heart was relocated. That made her feel in equal parts relieved and apprehensive). But that wouldn’t deter her. She was going to be her own person, she was going to live. 

Live to see herself freeze when she finally faced a classroom full of kids she didn’t recognize and be asked, candidly, by a slightly over excited teacher, to “Present yourself to class”. 

What could she possibly say? 

She had spent the last night writing in her notebook, over and over again, a presentation that wouldn’t give up her true identity but still hint that she wasn’t quite as acclimated to school life as the other kids. Lea and Isa had helped, Roxas and Xion told her what to expect, what they knew of the kids in her class from what they’ve heard from their friends, which teachers were “cool” and which were “boring”, what she was going to learn… So she drafted a perfect introduction, a surefire way to make herself seem like she would belong there in no time. 

And it would be all lies. 

How could she possibly lie again? After everything she had done? All the lives she ruined?

So she stiffed in place, her whole body freezing. She felt the words of the teacher become vibrations as she could only hear the whispers of the students, staring at her in confusion. Fear. Disgust. Finally she couldn’t even tell what they were saying, her vision blurring as her face became hot and her throat constricted. Before she could fully experience the swell of tears, she felt a weight in her shoulder which shocked her out of her stupor. The teacher was asking her something, but her ears felt stuffed with cotton, the sound distant, until…

“Are you ok? Do you need to see the nurse?”

“N- no. I’m fine, I’m fine.” 

And there it was again, the lying witch.

She cleaned her eyes of the moisture, and smiled like she was someone else, anyone else. _It’s easier like that, isn’t it? To live the life they want you to live?_ She told the professor it was just overwhelming, she wasn’t used to that many people around her. Which might have been true, and proceeded to feed an entire class of poor, innocent children lies, lies she fabricated so she wouldn’t look out of place somewhere she didn’t belong. 

_That’s what you always do, isn’t it?_

✰

That first day, she told Roxas and Xion she wasn’t feeling well and spent the break crying in a bathroom stall before putting on another smile and asking the teacher if she could go home. She walked aimlessly for a good 30 minutes before warning everyone she would go home early, in a futile attempt to avoid them see her bloodshot eyes. 

It ended up not mattering, for no one was home for hours anyway, even though Roxas and Xion showed enough concern to want to quit school that day and come after her, but she reassured them she just wasn’t feeling well, still “adapting to her new body” which they all could understand.

Every lie weighted on her, as they’ve always had. She wasn’t anymore the small, scared kid controlled by an evil organization. She should be above all that. She had friends, and she had a newfound purpose in finding info about Sora’s disappearance through searching everyone’s memories.

Searching for Sora… She wondered how everyone else managed to go through their days like life could just… Go on. 

She spent a year looking after Sora, and who knows how long before that waiting for his presence, for anyone to show up into her lonely, unfortunate existence... And she got her wish.

She spent her days learning to manipulate the only person she knew, and later on the only people she’d get any close to… Sora, Riku, and…

She scrunched her face and looked at her hands… She wondered, in the back of her mind, if it was a worthwhile trade off… Someone who could make a real difference, someone whose life she inadvertently destroyed, abandoned his only chance at a real life to get her one. No matter how happy she was to wake up, when Riku told her the truth she felt a chill running down her spine. 

What if they realized how unfair that was? How much they’ve lost by giving her this chance? 

She closed her fists painfully. There was nothing they could do anymore. They were stuck with the lying witch, no matter what she thought of the whole situation.

Would Sora forgive her? Would Kairi? She has no answer, for it’s as if both are lost to her right now. One lost to the casualty of the war, the other soon to follow in his footsteps. 

No matter how hard everyone searched, they were left with no clues, even though Kairi seemed sure her heart held the answer, she could feel it getting farther and farther away with every day she spent asleep. Maybe it was her connection to Kairi, maybe her powers showing their ugly head… _Their_ connection… 

The connection was gone, and everyone became scattered, lost in their little worlds yet again. In the middle of all that, someone tried to keep their link alive, and it worked for a little while.

Riku was as determined and stubborn as she remembered him being. She smiled the first few times he showed up to check if they had found anything in Roxas and Xion’s memories, but after a while she started noticing the old signs. 

The slight eye bags, the tick in his left hand, mindlessly clenching and unclenching, the jittery way he paced when no one else was looking. She knew those very well.

_“You’ve been awake for how long now?”_

_He scratched his head, and gave her a half hearted look of scrunched eyebrows and turned mouth._

_“I can’t hide from you, huh…”_

_She felt her own eyebrows close together and kicked nothing on the floor, her hands behind her back. “You don’t have to. You know that.”_

_He looked down, his gaze losing any heat it might have had, and sat on a nearby bench .“I am not sure… I remember the last time I ate though. Kairi wouldn’t let me live it down if I didn’t…” He looked more somber than normal in that moment._

_She squirmed a bit in place at the implication. “I see… Well… Neither would I, you know?”_

_“You?” he looked honestly baffled. Since when did Naminé of all people get this combative?_

_“Yeah. I know how you can be when it comes to him.”_

_“Seriously…” He felt more than a little embarrassed at the implication, even if… She was the first person he ever properly “told”._

_“I’m not going to let it get to that.” He got up and looked directly into her eyes as to convey his intentions. “I know better now. I’m doing this for my sake, too. And I know how they would react if they saw me running myself to the ground again… I don’t wanna hear it when they’re back.” he smiled for real for the first time in weeks._

_“I see.” she couldn’t help smiling back. It feels like they’re back at their old banter, complaining about their situation in hushed tones but always fighting to move forwards, always looking out for him._

_But sadly, they would never go back to that._

✰

The rest of her days forward didn’t go that much better. She got to finally meet Roxas’ friends at school, even if they’ve met before (“Hey! I remember you from that time I copied your memories to help make data copies of you all in a data Twilight Town to trick Roxas into believing he had a normal life!” didn’t seem like a proper introduction then and doesn’t much now) but…

_“Hey Naminé! Come here!” Pence waves to her, from the other side of the cafeteria, and she feels the first spike of genuine hope that day so far as she quickly makes her way to where they’re all sitting._

_“Sooo, how was 10-B behaving today? They didn’t give you any trouble right?” said Roxas, biting into the sandwich Lea clumsily had made after waking up fairly too late to make them proper lunch._

_“It was quite alright.” when they’re not trying to talk to me like I’m a weirdo or plainly avoiding me._

_“Ugh, if you ask me 10-B are a bunch of snobs. Don’t even start me on Seifer’s friends.” Hayner waved a pastry from the cafeteria not caring one bit for the bits falling off of it. Olette seemed to care very much though, and glared at him, even if it didn’t have much heat._

_“Well, I’m sure they would seem quite okay to you if you weren’t so into the idea fighting someone is the best way into their heart.” she answered back, while Pence snickered softly in the background and Xion looked slightly awkward. “In my home economics class, for example…”_

_“Oh, have mercy on me, you’ve told me this a million times…”_

_“And you never listen!”_

_“Because it’s the same story every time!”_

_She sighs, and mentally curses at herself for escalating the situation. The focus shouldn’t be on them right now, but on making Naminé, Roxas and Xion feel more comfortable with their new lives._

_So she turns to Naminé and asks “Have you taken any electives yet? I heard the art kids are killing it this year, and I really wanted to enter the sewing class…”_

_“Oh…” Naminé feels her face heat up. She didn’t really think about it at all, not when there’s… Bigger issues plaguing her life right now._

_(The image of Kairi crying while walking back to them at Destiny Islands is still just as strong under her eyelids as last night’s discussion between Lea and Isa when they thought the kids were asleep.)_

_But she can’t just say that, not when everyone at the table is looking at her expectantly… So she smiles as best as she can and vaguely reaches for the sandwich she still hasn’t touched on the table. “Art sounds nice enough.” she vaguely answers. She can’t think about interacting with more new kids when she hasn’t made a dent in the ice currently encasing her at class._

_Almost if sensing her distress, or just the awkward air surrounding them right now, Roxas pipes up “Ok, but please teach me again, why isn’t skating a class at school?” he says like he’s telling a joke but Naminé can tell he is… More serious than the question warrants._

_“Didn’t you learn that when you… You know, thought you were a student here? I mean, you are now, but back then…” Pence quickly backtracks as his words fall down as a lead curtain over Naminé’s heart._

_“Dude, you think I knew that much when I lived there for a week? I barely knew how to do simple math if I’m being honest.” his tone is again, jovial and light, like they aren’t talking about that time he was imprisoned with fake memories for an entire week, only to break out into another prison._

_Naminé wants to throw up._

_“Ok, ok, but since we’re on the subject… Tell me. How cool was I back there? I bet I’m cool even if I’m made of data.” Hayner seems to enter the ring in trying to make the subject mundane, or as mundane as their lives can be._

_“Yeah, you were very cool when I whipped the floor with you at Struggle.”_

_“Hey! That’s not going to happen in real life! You had it easy at data Town! I bet they made me extra boneless so you wouldn’t have a hard time!”_

_“Weren’t you just talking about how cool you would be?”_

_She feels herself tuning out their conversation again, her heart hammering at her chest. They don’t know. They don’t know. They don’t know._

_What right she has in entering their lives like that after what she has done?_

_What right she has to be there in the first place, breaking into the happiness of people whose happiness she destroyed in the first place?_

_She feels a vague weight on her shoulder again, but this time it doesn’t bring her out it. She excuses herself with a clumsy “I think I’m going to throw up.” and leaves to the bathroom again._

_She hears the whispers of the other kids as she runs as fast as she can, “What’s she’s doing, Doesn’t she do that a lot, though? What’s wrong with her this time?” and comes to the stall and closes the door in a hurry behind her, making a lot more noise than it warrants._

_She gets to the floor heaving, vaguely wondering how does everyone else seem to take running so easily when it feels like a impossible task to her at the best of times. She feels her face run hot and wet, and hugs her knees in a poor attempt to keep whatever notion of dignity she still has._

_When she hears a knock at the stall door._

_“What’s going on?” It feels weird to hear Xion’s voice so tired again, like they’re back at the mansion, discussing her (lack of) future._

_She doesn’t answer. She can’t answer._

_She hears a slight bump against the door, like Xion is leaning against it. “You know… We don’t blame you. Not me, not Roxas.”_

_“You should. You should-”_

_“Why should we?”_

_“Because, because…” Because I ruined your lives first, because I could do nothing when you were broken down again by awful people, because I sit down on that dinner table every night and pretend I’m just as part of your family as you, the real people are,_

_“You heard Isa and Lea last night right?”_

_She doesn’t know what to answer._

_“Rent’s tight for two adults and three kids in a big town. Lea’s doing his best but work isn’t exactly willing to promote someone whose job specifications limit to “spy and traitor” from ages 15 to 26. Isa is doing somewhat better, but he’s also fighting to be taken seriously.”_

_“You saw how late Lea got home yesterday right? And how Isa waited for him even though we all went pretended to go to sleep.”_

_“I know all that… What does it have to do with… All this?”_

_“Before you woke up, Lea sat us down and told us how we were going to get by in our new lives. About his new job, and how Isa was going to come live with us. He looked at me in the eye, and told us if he ever did anything that made us uncomfortable, he was going to make him sleep in Pluto’s dog house.”_

_“What?” She couldn’t imagine that. Sure, they fought every once in a while, but so did everyone, even Roxas and Xion fought over who got the last piece of pizza during dinner sometimes. But going so far as kicking him out? Didn’t he fight to bring Isa back as well?_

_“Well, that just means Isa going back to his parents in Radiant Garden if I’m being honest. He wouldn’t really leave Isa homeless.”_

_“Oh… I still don’t understand.”_

_“When they told us you woke up, Lea fought with Isa to bring you back to Twilight Town and let you live with us. Isa didn’t want to leave you alone but he was adamant it would be hard to raise three kids in a small apartment with less than ideal jobs. He was right.”_

_“Oh…” so she was a burden on top of a life ruiner._

_“But when me and Roxas joined in our voices, he had to reiterate. He just meant we couldn’t do it yet. They had to get better jobs and a better place first. But me and Roxas insisted we would get summer jobs and cut down on the seasalt ice cream to help.”_

_“Pff-” She can’t help, she somehow starts laughing at the idea of them cutting down the ice cream intake at all._

_“So. If you’re here, it’s because we wanted you to be.”_

_She doesn’t feel the tears running down her cheeks anymore, but something doesn’t feel quite right._

_“... But that still doesn’t make what I did okay.”_

_“Does it make what Isa did ok? What Lea did? He brought me back too. But they’re working to make us have another chance at life now.”_

_She doesn’t answer. But she knows, deep down, something’s telling her what they did doesn’t compare to what she did… It’s not like they had a choice._

_She searches her pocket for a moment, and it’s there. It’s always there. The charm, the symbol of everything she did, conveniently shaped into a wishing star. So she wishes._

_She wishes to make up to everything she has done. She wishes for once in her life, to be the person they believe she is._

_She gets up and opens the door to a unexpectedly shocked Xion, and fakes her best smile. “Thank you… I’ll make up to everyone. I promise.”_

_Xion looks slightly out of place, like she didn’t think this was going to be it. “You just have to be yourself, you know.”_

_Naminé smiles again, but it feels harder to force with every passing second. “Don’t worry.”_

_They’re both looking at each other, feeling uneasy for very different reasons, when suddenly a commotion breaks outside._

_“Oh, what the-” Xion can’t finish before the door opens and Olette walks backwards into the bathroom as a group of very angry girls follows her yelling._

_“Get out of the door!” “What’s wrong with you?” “Let me in you-”_

_“I can’t let you in! Please go to the other bathroom- Oh! Are you guys done?”_

_Olette looks back at them in absolute panic._

_Oh, oh no. Was that why no one came by to interrupt their talk?_

_“Oh, why would you…” Xion starts, then sighs. “It’s ok Olette, we’re done.”_

_“Oh, thank goodness-” “Get out of the way!” “Ok! Ok! Jeez!”_

_They leave as the girls enter, cursing them all the way through. Well that sure won’t help Naminé’s non existent popularity._

_Almost if on cue, Xion asks Olette “Is this ok? I don’t want you to get into any trouble…”_

_“Nah.” Olette dismisses it with a casual hand gesture, “I’ve never been too popular with that crowd anyway. This changes nothing.” She’s smiling in a way that looks… So genuine, despite the situation, it makes Naminé slightly… Jealous._

_They go back to their table, we’re everyone else is waiting expectantly. They ask Naminé how she is, what had happened._

_And she smiles and tells them she wasn’t feeling well, Xion helped her out, but nothing else happened._

_Xion looks conflicted, but says nothing. Roxas stares with his brows knit, but also says nothing._

✰

After that, it became easy to sit and smile, listen to their jokes, act like she belongs in there, but she never forgot her promise. Until she got home, and after she finished getting her stuff sorted, she got accosted by Roxas and Xion at the dinner table. 

"What happened there?" 

"What do you mean…?" 

"You know what we mean." Xion looks… Almost angry, and it makes Naminé cower a little. That immediately makes them back off slightly. 

"Listen. We're just worried about you. We know how hard it is." Roxas says, confidently but not without its own share of awkwardness. He never did know how to interact with Naminé ever since she came back. 

"Yeah. You haven’t been acting like yourself lately.” Xion ads.

_Like you know what I act like “normally”._

She feels a shiver run down her spine, she couldn’t possibly say that out loud.

_It’s true. Do they really know you at all? How would they feel knowing the real you?_

“Naminé?” There’s genuine worry in their eyes, _unwarranted worry._ The guilt is consuming her.

“I haven’t been feeling well, it’s true…” not a lie.

“Not feeling well? Naminé, I heard what the kids in your class have been saying about you, and it hasn’t been anything… Nice.”

She says nothing.

“Yeah, do you need us to go beat someone up?” They seem ready to run to her defense.

“Don’t worry, no one has been mean to me.” _To my face._ “I’ve just had a bit of… Trouble adapting to so many people so far.”

“Well, that doesn’t explain why you would breakdown like that.”

“Everything has been… A bit too overwhelming I guess, I need some time.”

“Do you want to quit school? No one would blame you-” starts Xion.

“No!” she answers almost immediately. She’s pretty sure the neighbors heard that one, with how thin the walls are.

“… Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.” she breathes deep, once, twice. “I just… I really need this chance right now.”

“You’re gonna have other chances you know…” Roxas starts, but she doesn’t let him continue.

“I know.” _You won’t._ “But I think I can do it. I just need some time to adjust, and I’m… Excited about it too! I want to keep going! I could… Start electives! I could go out like you and the other kids! There’s so many places I want to see, that I could draw and so many… People I could meet…” 

She’s close to crying again, and she feels herself starting to shut down. But she can’t. Not right now, not right here. She can’t give up on her wish. 

Roxas looks like a kicked puppy, and Xion begins to get a hand around her but aborts the movement halfway, as Naminé raises her head once more.

“I know you have no reason to believe me but… I know I can do this.” _Well isn’t that how it always goes. You pull some puppy eyes, some well meaning words, and expect it to get you through the day._

“Of course we believe you!” Xion is quick to add “It’s just… I’ve never seen you like that…” 

“It’s ok really…” _you wouldn’t know._ “I’m just…”

And then they hear it, the tell tale noise coming from the corridor, of two adult men mildly discussing what’s gonna be for dinner, and a click at the door. 

Naminé takes her chance. “I’m just very tired right now, I’d rather rest and discuss the matter another day.”

“Wait, Naminé-” starts Xion as the door opens. But she has already gone off and left.

✰

That night, after a dragged out dinner where no one seems interesting in bringing up anything in particular, and the adults (well, mostly Isa) make sure they finished their homework, she covers herself head to toe with the duvet, and doesn’t dream about anything in particular.

That was week one.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much if you've read this! Hope it was enjoyable! If it was, or not, feel free to comment what you think, I'd love to hear people's opinions on this work! If you have any interest in more of my work, I have an art account at https://twitter.com/localhydrangea ! And I hope you have a nice day, be well, stay safe!


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